The relationships between patients' and caregivers' beliefs about the causes of schizophrenia and clinical outcomes in Latin American countries.

ABSTRACT: Beliefs about the causes of schizophrenia are thought to impact treatment outcomes. We investigated 3 theoretically opposing belief systems (biological, psychosocial, magical-religious) in relation to the severity of positive and negative symptoms and to attitudes towards medications. We recruited 253 patients with schizophrenia and their primary caregivers from public mental health clinics in Bolivia, Chile, and Peru. We assessed patients' and caregivers' beliefs about the causes of schizophrenia, which were used as predictors of symptom severity and medication attitudes in linear regression analyses. Patients' scores on biological, psychosocial, and magical-religious beliefs were positively correlated with one another, indicating that these domains were not, as anticipated, "opposing". P

SUBMITTER: Caqueo-Urizar A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4546864 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature